July 14, 2024

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

This painting – ‘Edward’s Bath’ – is a take on the original 1880s clawfoot tub that arrived as part of a second-story addition to the birthplace home of Edward Hopper, the famous American painter. It was part of the first indoor facility in his grandparent’s 1858 house on North Broadway in Nyack, N.Y. The painting subject was chosen because I thought perhaps the young Hopper, who expressed an interest in art at a tender age, might have mused about drawing while taking a wash.

Fanciful, perhaps, but we all sometime muse in the shower, the bath. Dreams can be made there.

The rest of the work includes a sketch painting of a house that looks like the family home, now the Edward Hopper House Museum and Study Center, and what seems required in a painting about Hopper – light from a window. There actually is a large, colored-glass window in the still-existing but non-operable bathroom.

The painting is simplistic, reflecting artist style but also a humble nod to Hopper, whose works became more spare as his career continued, particularly toward the end of his long life (Hopper died at 85 in 1967). Edward’s increasing “simplicity” spoke more about his subject than any detail could offer. Fill-in the details as it were.

Such paintings as Hopper’s, like the hopes and dreams we can muse about in the bathtub, cut quick to individual language, our personal mojo. Hopper had his; we all do.

The writer is a retired newspaperman. This essay was requested in connection with transfer of ‘Edward’s Bath,’ as backstory. (With thanks to the Perry Lawson Fine Arts Gallery in Nyack.)

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